On 'pieces of string too short to be of any use'

When clearing out my mother's house after her death I found a small shoebox. On its lid she had scrawled in her black and almost illegible letters ‘pieces of string too short to be of any use’.

I opened the box and found hundreds of pieces of string like the worms fisherman use, each one only about an inch in length. These ends must have been cut from longer pieces which may have been used to hang paintings, to tie in a cross around a parcel, to help runner beans up the garden wall. All that useful string is gone now leaving only these off cuts.

That is perhaps all we can hope for in our own lives. The useful parts gets used up, invested in our relationships, our hopes and failures until all that is left are these small mixed pieces. The leftovers which are put in a box and placed in the ground.

But I’ve kept the small shoebox as a hopeful message; those pieces which are too short are the pieces that last and are treasured.